Air traffic controllers (hereafter referred to as “controllers”) engaging in airspace control (hereafter referred to as “control”) have a primary obligation of providing accurate control guidance to aircraft so that multiple aircraft do not become abnormally close to each other (hereafter referred to as “conflict”).
In recent years, air traffic volume has increased accompanying growth in demand for air transportation. Consequently, providing accurate control guidance so that conflicts do not occur has become an onerous burden for controllers.
In consideration of these circumstances, devices and systems have been developed that use information technology to generate control guidance to prevent conflicts from occurring, in order to ease the burden on controllers.
In Patent Literature 1, a flight path route setting device and recording medium are disclosed that detect route information for aircraft falling under prescribed collision conditions, when flight paths are changed, and change the detected route information of the aircraft so as to get out of the collision conditions. This airspace route setting device partitions airspace that is the target of control into multiple cells, and extracts cells in which there is operating information for two or more aircraft, based on operating information for aircraft maintained by the airspace route setting device. Furthermore, a process for detecting route information for aircraft falling under prescribed collision conditions is accomplished only in the extracted cells. When route information for aircraft falling under the prescribed collision conditions is extracted, the altitude of the aircraft is adjusted so that the time interval between when multiple aircraft pass through a prescribed point becomes at least a prescribed interval, so as to get out of the collision conditions.
Patent Literature 2 discloses a four-dimensional optimum route guidance system for aircraft that extracts four-dimensional optimum routes that do not cause conflicts, for multiple aircraft. This four-dimensional optimum route guidance system extracts the optimum routes that minimize the cost to all aircraft based on cost indicators such as distance, required time and required fuel. Specifically, nodes in which points through which aircraft pass within the controlled airspace are designated by three-dimensional (latitude, longitude, altitude) values are set. In addition, legs linking nodes are set. A cost is assigned to each leg, an estimated cost to a destination is assigned to each node and the cost-minimizing route from the current position to a destination is found using an A* algorithm. When the occurrence of a conflict is anticipated for a calculated route, the optimum route for the aircraft having higher priority rank is fixed, based on the priority ranking set for the aircraft. Furthermore, for the aircraft having lower priority ranking, the optimum route such that a conflict does not occur with the aircraft having higher priority ranking is recalculated.
Patent Literature 3 and Patent Literature 4 disclose art for preventing the occurrence of conflicts through detours in flight paths or altitude changes when the likelihood of a conflict occurring is detected through wireless navigation equipment and/or the like installed in aircraft.